


Amicus Curiae

by DachOsmin



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Lawyers, Banter, Big Feelings About SCOTUS, Competence Kink, Drunk Sex, Hotel Sex, Law School, M/M, Meet-Cute, Semi-Public Sex, Suit Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:40:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28313223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DachOsmin/pseuds/DachOsmin
Summary: Peter Parker is halfway through his first year of law school and trying very hard not to regret everything. Tony Stark is a hotshot partner sent to make nice with the 1Ls at a firm reception. Will minimum contacts lead to something more?Or: the 1L law firm reception AU the world didn't know it needed.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 79
Collections: Ironspiders Georg Secret Stocking Stuffer Exchange 2020





	Amicus Curiae

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LearnedFoot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LearnedFoot/gifts).



Peter Parker is halfway through his first year of law school and trying very hard not to regret everything.

It had all seemed so simple going in: study hard, become a lawyer, pursue justice for the downtrodden! Except no one had mentioned that his teachers would be much more preoccupied with arcane citation systems and arguments about what a chicken was than anything to do with justice, not to mention that while commitments to justice are all very well and good, they weren’t going to do a damn thing to ameliorate the debt he’s currently drowning in.

The school will pay off his loans if he stays in public interest for long enough, but it’s still going to be a decade until he’s free of the debt. There have been a few nights, staring at his bank account and morosely eating ramen, that he’s considered stripping. Some girl the year above him did it and made bank, at least according to the section slack channel. Except he’s awkward and has no dancing skills, so stripping’s probably out.

There is, of course, another option. A darker, more sinister option.

Which is how he finds himself heeding the siren call of a corporate law firm reception on a miserable January night, threadbare peacoat and discount polyester suit doing absolutely nothing to cut the icy northern wind.

The reception is at a ritzy bar down by the river. He’s walked past the place a dozen times or so on the way to Dunkin, but has never actually been inside. From the looks of it it’s the sort of place that serves tiny portions of food artfully arranged over swirls of sauce, with words like “deconstructed” and “emulsion” in the menu descriptions. He could never afford a meal there normally, but it’ll all be free tonight. All they ask in return is his soul.

Next to him, MJ groans. “Stop acting like you’re selling your soul.”

He resists the urge to scuff his shoes against the jagged bricks of the sidewalk. “I am though.”

She glares as they wait to cross the street. “You aren’t actually signing up for anything. You’ll just stuff some appetizers in your mouth, raid the bar, and tell the partners to fuck off if they try to corner you and tell you about how their firm actually does a ton of public interest work.”

She makes it sound so simple, as if Peter has any practice telling corporate lawyers that eat people like him for breakfast to fuck off. “I don’t want a campus-wide nastygram from Career Services going out about me.”

She winces, and Peter briefly feels a stab of guilt at reminding her about the one that had gone out last week. “It is not advised to do body shots at a Cravath reception,” she parrots in a sing-song voice.

He shudders in return. “If they don’t want 1Ls to drink, why do they have open bars?”

“Oh, they very much want 1Ls to drink,” she says. “It’s like an interview pre-screening.”

“That’s a very Machiavellian take.”

“Peter,” she says, voice deadpan. “We’re talking about corporate law firms.”

And yeah, what can he really say to that?

***

They make it to the restaurant just as Peter starts to lose feeling in his fingers from the cold. It’s already buzzing with wide-eyed 1Ls in their best suits as far as the eye can see. The ceiling is strung with lanterns that cast the assembled throng in flickering shades of gold. Laughter and the clink of wine glasses echo out onto the street. All in all, it looks a bit like fairyland.

Peter takes a deep breath to steady himself as he takes the doorknob in hand and pulls. He tamps down on the twinge of wistfulness twisting in his chest. He doesn’t need their money. He’s not here to make nice or kiss ass. He’s here for the food, for the dirty manhattans, and…

Well.

There’s maybe one other draw.

It’s the reason he’d offered to come with MJ to this particular firm’s reception, even though he’s skipped the rest of them. Because Fury, Hill, & Coulson has one thing going for it that the others don’t have. Or rather, one person.

It’s a silly thought, really. They’d never send a partner like _him_ to one of these things; most of the lawyers here look barely older than Peter himself, still bright eyed and fresh and excited enough about their legal careers that they’re willing to spend the evening extolling the virtues of working in secured transactions to a bunch of impressionable law students.

Peter exhales. No, _he’s_ not going to be here. He’s probably off prepping for his next supreme court argument or making legal history doing something much more interesting than seducing 1Ls to the dark side.

“So are we just going to stand here, or what?” MJ asks.

Sighing, Peter steps inside the restaurant. The crush of the crowd does its work as he struggles to get his peacoat off; by the time he’s chucked it onto the pile by the entryway he’s already lost MJ into the swirling throng. For lack of anything better to do, he makes a beeline for the bar. Fashionably half-filled wineglasses are arranged in rows like little soldiers, each regiment accompanied by an artful placard detailing the name and origin of the wine. After a moment’s hesitation he picks one of the white ones; red makes his head hurt.

He turns away from the bar with a vague notion of finding MJ again—

And finds his path blocked by a mountain.

He blinks. Looks up. The mountain has a head, spikes of blonde hair just shy of grazing the ceiling.

“Odinson!” booms the man, holding out a hand the size of a dinner plate for Peter to shake. “Mergers and Acquisitions!”

“Great!” Peter says, and promptly runs away.

After that particularly dismal interaction, Peter stays towards the back of the restaurant, away from the crowds. He’s not hiding. He’s _not._ It’s just that the longer he stays here the more out of place he feels, the more like an imposter. How are all his classmates acting genuinely excited about corporate bankruptcy practices? Is there something wrong with him?

No one else tries to talk to him, but one of the waiters takes pity on him and swings by every so often with drink trays on her way back to the kitchen. He has another glass of wine, and another, all the while watching the mingling and schmoozing from a distance with something like pain in his heart.

He’s suddenly aware of a presence next to him. “Not your scene?”

“I still have no idea what mergers and acquisitions are,” he says. “So, no.” And then he glances over, and immediately loses his shit. Because it’s _him._ Tony mother fucking Stark.

Peter almost drops his wineglass, just managing to fumble a grip on it before it slips from his fingers. The wine splashes out of the glass in an arc, spattering across the floor and onto the tops of Mr. Stark’s leather shoes that probably cost as much as his rent for the semester.

Fuck fuck fuck. “I am—I am _so_ sorry,” he yelps, dropping to his knees and fumbling a crushed napkin out of his pocket. If he gets yelled at by Mr. Stark he’s going to cry. He swipes at the wine with the napkin, mopping up the worst of it. “If they’re ruined, I can pay or something,” he babbles, never mind that he really, really can’t.

Silence.

Trying not to cringe, Peter looks up. Mr. Stark is staring down at him like he’s grown not only a second head, but maybe the beginnings of a third as well. And maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with the fact that Peter not only spilled wine all over his shoes, but is currently also on his knees with his face like three inches from the man’s crotch.

Fuck, but he’s messed this up. “I wasn’t expecting you to be here,” he mumbles, as if that explains everything, because what else do you say when you’re about to be cursed out of existence by a legal legend that’s argued before the Supreme Court five times?

Mr. Stark blinks, and then the wide-eyed stare is gone, sliding behind a congenial expression as smoothly as the turning of a globe. He lets out a charming laugh that _does_ things to Peter, fuck. “You’re a fan, I take it?”

His voice sounds just like it does on the tapes of his SCOTUS oral arguments: suave, confident, and with a hint of gravel. Peter’s not going to tell Mr. Stark that he’s gotten off to those tapes, fucked his own hand in the dark confines of his bed as Mr. Stark purred to the court about the _noscitur_ canon.

Peter gets to his feet awkwardly, stuffing the ruined napkin back into his pocket. “I just really admire your work,” he mumbles, like the world’s biggest idiot.

“Really.” Another chuckle. “Well, what would you have done differently in the _Ultron_ case?”

Peter swallows. _Ultron v. J.A.R.V.I.S._ Mr. Stark’s white whale, the only SCOTUS case he’s lost—and not even by a narrow margin, but in a crushing 8 to 1 defeat. Peter bites his lip, mind racing. He should really just say that the case was perfectly argued and that it was the court that was wrong: Mr. stark probably just wants a quick compliment from a fan, and lord knows he deserves it.

But on the other hand, Peter has had a few glasses of wine, and he has _opinions_ about this case, and besides, when is he going to get a chance like this again? So he goes for it.

“Honestly?” he says, taking a quick sip of wine to wet his tongue. “Pretty much everything.”

Mr. Stark blinks. And then he narrows his eyes as a hint of a smile appears at the edges of his lips. “Tell me more.”

***

Wonder of wonders, Mr. Stark doesn’t immediately tell him to get lost when Peter expounds upon his grand theory that the plaintiffs should’ve relied on a completely different line of cases in making their argument. Instead, Mr. Stark digs in and starts asking him _more_ questions, asking him to explain his reasoning, picking apart his weaker arguments and building them into something better. It feels like what Peter imagines dancing must be like, if he were capable of dancing and were paired with a partner that could perfectly anticipate his each and every step.

It's great, it’s exhilarating, it’s fantastic. Their sentences flow together, Mr. Stark picking up where he trails off and vice versa. Peter can’t help the giddy buzzing in his chest: so this is what it feels like to match wits with a mind as sharp as a diamond. He’s never been focused on so singularly; he’s never been _seen_ like this. He wants to revel in it, bask in it, stretch out like a cat and roll in it.

And that’s not even getting into the fact that Mr. Stark is insanely hot when he argues: he is.

But every fairy tale comes to an end.

Mr. Stark is in the middle of a tangent about the SCOTUS basketball court when one of the waiters sidles up next to him and coughs politely. “We’re closing.”

Peter looks around and blinks. The restaurant is almost empty save for a handful of staff cleaning up the detritus of the fruit platters. The army of wine glasses has been decimated; the counters are a mess of crumpled cocktail napkins and discarded appetizer plates.

From Mr. Stark’s furrowed brow, the time had run away from him too.

Peter can’t help the lump in his throat. He’s never had a conversation like this before and he can’t help but feel like he never will again. Already the moment is slipping away, and he can already imagine how he’ll look back on this night with a mixture of fondness and yearning years later. Well, life’s like that sometimes. Swallowing, he nods to Mr. Stark. “It’s been, ah, wonderful. To get to talk to you.”

“The feeling’s mutual,” Mr. Stark says. “I want to hear your opinion on the appeal, though.” He frowns, looking out the window at the glittering street lights beyond. “Tasty Burger is open until three, right?”

***

Tasty Burger is indeed open until three. Which is how Peter ends up perched on a stool two and a half hours later, drunk off his ass and ranting at Mr. Stark about the last twenty years of the Supreme Court’s greatest hits.

“It was wrongly decided! The Scalia dissent—"

Mr. Stark stabs the air with a french fry, eyes narrowing. “Don’t you fucking bring him into this.”

Peter scowls because he had in fact been about to bring Antonin into it. Also, there’s a smidgeon of ketchup at the edge of Mr. Stark’s mouth and fuck if he doesn’t want to lean in and lick it away. He doesn’t do it though, because that would be weird and also wrong.

Except he’s already doing something wrong, and his stomach is churning with it, although that might just be the alcohol. For all intents and purposes, he’s leading Mr. Stark on. Peter’s here for the wrong reasons. Mr. Stark is doing what he’s paid to do; he’s here to lure Peter to the dark side, to firm work. But no matter how good Mr. Stark looks eating French fries, Peter isn’t going to be interviewing with Fury, Hill, & Coulson.

He needs to say something. He needs to come clean. He takes a deep breath. “Look, I—I need to admit something.”

Across the table, Mr. Stark stills. “Oh?” he asks, voice deceptively casual.

Peter swallows. “I’m…I’m…”

Mr. Stark sighs. “Spit it out, kid.”

“I’m public interest,” Peter shouts, loud enough that the undergrads at the next table jump in their seats.

“Oh,” Mr. Stark says. He pauses. “I thought you were going to say you were straight.” And then a wave of horror washes over his face as he realizes what he’s just said. “Oh, fuck no, I shouldn’t have said that—"

Peter blinks. “No, it’s—"

“—should _not_ have said that, going to get in trouble with HR, going to get written up on Above the Law—"

“—I mean, I’m not.”

Mr. Stark blinks. “You’re not going to tell Above the Law?”

“No, I mean I’m not straight.”

And it’s funny, because Mr. Stark suddenly looks as flatflooted as Peter had felt when he first spilled wine all over the man’s shoes.

Through the haze of the alcohol, Peter drags a mental highlighter over the key details at play. Orange, because he uses those for the fact sections, so he’s a nerd, sue him. The facts are: Mr. Stark is not wearing a wedding ring. Mr. Stark was thinking about his sexuality. Mr. Stark has spent the last several hours yelling with him about SCOTUS, and Peter is more than a little bit horny about it.

He opens his eyes. Decision made. He glances over at the windows, and the dark and foggy street outside. “It’s cold out, he says, because it is.

“It is,” Mr. Stark says, a question in his voice.

Peter nods. “It’s cold, and I live back over the river, and my coat doesn’t have a hood. It would really suck to walk all the way back.”

“I could call you an uber?” Mr. Stark says, hedging like he’s not quite sure where Peter’s going with this.

“You could,” Peter says. He pauses, summons all his courage, and meets Mr. Stark’s eyes. “But I bet your hotel is a lot closer.”

***

They walk side by side to the hotel, their hands and knees against each other bumping occasionally. At one point Peter stumbles over a broken brick in the sidewalk, and Mr. Stark reaches out to steady him with a firm hand on his forearm. Peter can feel the heat of him through the coat and shivers, but not from the cold.

A block later, Mr. Stark abruptly mutters “fuck it” and presses Peter’s back up against an iron lamppost, before pulling him into an open-mouthed kiss.

Peter clings to the lapels of Mr. Stark’s pea coat as Mr. Stark ravages his mouth, nipping at his lips and carding his hands through Peter’s hair. Peter lets his eyes flutter shut, reveling in the sensation of Mr. Stark’s beard scratching against his cheek and the counterpoint of the foggy heat of the other man’s breath on his face against the cold.

Mr. Stark isn’t exactly gentle, but Peter doesn’t want gentle: the dig of the lamppost into his back, the sharp press of Mr. Stark’s erection against his thigh, the sudden tightness of his thigh—it’s all sharp and bright and perfect, and it’s got Peter harder than he thinks he’s ever been in his life. And anyone could see them—any of his classmates, anyone walking by—but somehow that makes it even hotter, and he can’t help the whine that breaks from his throat.

With supreme effort, he manages to pull himself back from Mr. Stark’s perfect, perfect lips. “Hotel,” he gasps, “now, please.”

Mr. Stark blinks down at him, pupils blown wide. “Yeah,” he says, voice unsteady. “Yeah, okay.”

They make it the rest of the way to the hotel without touching, but with every step Peter is supremely aware of Mr. Stark’s body, and the space between it and his own. The tension is palpable and delicious: it’s one thing to fantasize about leaning in and kissing him, but entirely another to be in possession of the terrible and delightful knowledge that he could actually do it and gave Mr. Stark reciprocate.

All this to say: by the time they get to the hotel elevators Peter is very hard in his slacks. Thank god his shitty polyester peacoat hides his erection, because otherwise he’d never be able to show his face in public again.

Finally they make it to Mr. Stark’s hotel room. It’s the penthouse, because of course it is; the floor-to-ceiling windows look out over the river, which sparkles with the lights of the city beyond. Peter turns his back on the view to watch with breathless anticipation as Mr. Stark closes and locks the door.

When Mr. Stark turns to face him, his eyes are dark with lust, but also something deeper. He reaches for Peter with something like reverence, and Peter is helpless to do anything but fall into his arms.

“God,” Mr. Stark whispers between kisses. “How are you even real, kid?”

Peter doesn’t have any response but to kiss him more, kiss him harder. The kisses go from gentle to rough to frenzied.

Somehow Peter ends up pressed against the window, pants pooling around his ankles as Mr. Stark fucks him in slow, indulgent thrusts. Peter’s hands smudge shapes onto the cold glass as he scrabbles for something to hold onto as Mr. Stark picks up the pace; both of their exhales fog the glass as they pant, sweat-soaked and shuddering.

Far, far below people might be out walking along the inky black strand of the river, but if they are, none are looking up at the lights of the penthouse suite.

Mr. Stark picks up the pace, fucking him hard against the glass, wringing cries out of him, shuddering gasps and aching moans he barely recognizes. He’s pinned in place and he loves it, loves the security and the inevitability of it, the way he can do nothing but take what Mr. Stark gives him.

He’s dizzy between buzz of the alcohol, the foggy glass, and the neon lights of cars in the distance. But Mr. Stark holds him up through all of it, whispers “I’ve got you” gently against his ear as he fucks him, presses open-mouthed kisses full of longing against the join of his neck and his shoulder. It’s the most romantic one night stand he’s ever had.

Before long Mr. Stark is grunting behind him, his strokes gone erratic, his hands spasming hard enough to bruise where they dig into Peter’s hips. He drives forward one last time with a yell, and then Peter feels the warmth of his climax deep inside, and it’s enough to push him over the edge a moment later.

When he comes, it’s with a silent cry, his come smearing across the glass of the window as he slumps backwards, into Mr. Stark’s waiting arms.

***

Peter wakes to sunlight streaming in through the windows—the very windows that Mr. Stark had fucked him against the night before, his memory helpfully provides. Blinking the sleep from his eyes, he realizes there are a few, er, smears on the glass. He resolves to leave a good tip for housekeeping.

He hadn’t meant to spend the night—in fact, he’d made various noises about leaving once he’d recovered from getting fucked within an inch of his life, but Mr. Stark had flung an arm over him and yanked him back into little-spoon position while muttering something about being an amicus of the court, and that had been that.

He’s alone in the bed, but judging from the light on in the bathroom, Mr. Stark hasn’t gone far. For a moment, Peter lets himself indulge in fantasy. What if this wasn’t just a once-in-a-lifetime fling? What if he woke up to Mr. Stark every morning, and they had breakfast together, and all their conversations picked right up where they’d left off the night before.

Sighing, Peter turns over to trace the embroidery on the coverlet. It’s a nice fantasy, but that isn’t the way these things work. He’s a big boy, he knows how this goes. He shouldn’t have even stayed the night. What’s going to happen is this: Mr. Stark is going to step out of the bathroom and maybe take him to breakfast out of some misplaced sense of guilt about corrupting the poor 1L. Check out’s at eleven, and after that the two of them will go their separate ways, and they’ll never see each other again.

Dreaming of anything more is a sure road to heartache.

Behind him, the bathroom door clicks.

Peter turns over, pasting on a smile that he doesn’t quite feel. “Good morning, Mr. Stark.”

Mr. Stark looks down at him with something that looks suspiciously like fondness. “Morning, kid. Want to get breakfast?”

“Yeah,” Peter said. “I could go for breakfast.”

Mr. Stark grins. “Great. And after that...are you planning on doing anything today?”

“Noooo?” Peter says, because technically he’d planned on judging an undergrad mock trial competition that afternoon, but he’s fully onboard with dropping that particular engagement like a hot potato if Mr. Stark is open to spending more time with him.

Mr. Stark walks towards the bed, and his smile is as fierce and as wide as a shark’s. “Let’s go suit shopping.”


End file.
